Knowing When to Stop

Many a times while teaching I have felt that one needs to know when the class has totally switched off and its a time to give the class a break. This happens more when you have either longer sessions or continuous sessions. Though one might have a urge to go on with his teaching and finish his quota of content , but then one needs to revisit the basic goal of why you are teaching, which is not just to finish the teaching for the day but also see that students learn...

There is a lot of theory on the sapn of attention which students can have and there are varying estimates from 40-60mins. Then it would also be a factor of what you are teaching , who is teaching and what pedagogical tool are you using. In a monotonous lecture the span of attention might be lower than when you are using discussion based methods like case method of teaching.

But even then if one finds that the receptivity of the class has gone dramatically in the last few minutes, and you still have a long way to go , it would always be better to give a small break and then go on with the teaching. This would make the teaching and learning both easier...

Maybe knowing when to break, could come with experince or at times with experience one might even become more immune to the receptivity of the class to your teaching???